OKAY BESTIES. So last night i was deep in a Wikipedia rabbit hole 🐇 (as u DO when you’re Avoiding Your Homework™) and i stumbled on something that has literally REWIRED my brain chemistry 🧠💥. There’s a rugby league club called Young Cherrypickers and i just HAVE to talk about this because my initial reaction was “aww how cute 🥺, a team of people who pick cherries for a living, love that for them, very agricultural, very demure” BUT THEN i read further and found out they’re based in Young, New South Wales and they’ve been around since 1923 and i was like WAIT. That name is not describing their JOB. It’s their TOWN NAME plus a verb?? That’s SO misleading???

*~spins around in my desk chair three times and knocks over a glitter gel pen~*

Like imagine being a professional cherry picker—like you wake up at 4am, you put on your sun hat 🧢 and your little fruit-stained gloves 🧤, you climb ladders all day 🪜, you gently pluck the ripest cherries from the branch, you’re an ARTISAN of the orchard—and someone’s like “oh you play for the Cherrypickers?” and you’re like “no that’s a RUGBY TEAM i have never touched a rugby ball in my LIFE i am a FRUIT PROFESSIONAL 🍒” and now everyone thinks you’re an athlete. THE AUDACITY.

So obviously i did what any sane person would do. i opened a new tab. i opened another tab. i ended up with seventeen tabs and a Google Doc titled CHERRY CONSPIRACY that i will never show another living soul. And i started connecting dots that probably shouldn’t be connected but here we are 💅

i am NOT saying the Young Cherrypickers are a government psy-op designed to distract us from the REAL cherrypickers (the fruit ones) who are clearly the backbone of rural Australia. but i am also NOT NOT saying that. look at the evidence 📋🔍.

i need you to understand how DEEP this rabbit hole goes. The Young Cherrypickers have a mascot. Does it hold a cherry? DOES IT. i couldn’t find a high-res image but i’m 99% sure it’s just a generic rugby guy and that is OFFENSIVE to the cherry-picking community. They should have a mascot that is literally a giant cherry with little legs running with a rugby ball. OR BETTER YET a ladder with eyes. C’MON MARKETING TEAM.

like i’m genuinely spiraling here besties. i was just trying to learn about rugby for fun and now i’m questioning the entire naming conventions of sports teams. what’s next, the Orange Thumpers are actually carrot farmers?? The Brisbane Broncos are just really into horse grooming??? i can’t TRUST anything anymore 💀

so anyway. The Young Cherrypickers are either:

1. a rugby team that has tricked the entire fruit industry into thinking they’re allies, OR
2. a secret society of actual cherry pickers who use rugby as a cover for their clandestine agricultural operations

i’m leaning toward option 2. obviously.

but honestly? even if i’m wrong (i’m not), i’m obsessed with the Young Cherrypickers now. they could have called themselves literally anything—Young Rugby Club, Young Stallions, Young Something Generic—but they chose CHERRYPICKERS. that takes commitment. that takes ENERGY. and even if they don’t actually pick a single cherry, i respect the brand identity 🍒.

maybe that’s the real lesson here. sometimes you name your team after something you aspire to be, not something you are. maybe we’re ALL just cherrypickers at heart, wandering through life trying to find the ripest fruit while accidentally forming a scrum in a random field in New South Wales 🏉.

*~falls dramatically onto my bed and stares at the ceiling while a single tear traces the contour of my face~*

anyway the real conspiracy is that i still don’t know how rugby works and i’m too afraid to ask at this point 🍒🏉✨